Chapter 1

 

Soren Lockhart tucked a strand of chocolate brown hair behind her ear, sighing when it wouldn’t stay. She liked this shorter cut, but there were times when she wished for her old ponytail. Foregoing the errant strand momentarily, she looked at the woman staring back at her from the oval mirror. Her blue eyes were still as dark and piercing as always, but now they were framed by deepening crow’s feet. Someone had once described her eyes as sexy, although she felt as far from that as possible today. She felt every one of her thirty-six years and then some.

She straightened her shirt, trying to tuck it back into the waistband of her slacks, but it stubbornly refused to stay. She tried tightening her belt to keep her shirt tucked in and frowned when she realized she’d already moved it to the last hole. She had always been slender for five-eight, but the weight she’d lost since her break up with Victoria had left her unnaturally thin. Nothing in her closet fit anymore, but she had long since stopped caring. That’s really what this is all about, isn’t it, Ren? Finding something to care about.

“Hey, Ren, you okay in there?”

Soren jumped at the sound of Brett’s voice. “Yeah, yes, I’m…fine.” She took one last look in the mirror and turned to open the door. Her eyes met Brett’s questioning brown ones and she plastered a smile on her face. “Everything’s fine. Let’s wrap this up.”

Soren signed the final document and set the pen down wearily. “I had no idea it would be that much work.”

Brett laughed, his voice deep and rich. “Oh, just wait, this will seem like a cake walk compared to the mess you are getting yourself into. Remind me again why you are doing this? Savannah, Georgia is really an odd choice. I still can’t believe you saw the house once and bought it, especially in its current condition.”

Soren regarded Brett Kendrix thoughtfully. Not only was he her lawyer, he was one of her best friends. Along with his sister Jordan, the three of them had been best friends since grammar school. They were the three Musketeers, although they were more like frick and frack and one extra for good measure. They were inseparable, and Soren’s decision to move away had not gone over well with Brett and Jordan, not to mention Brett’s wife Lauren and their kids. She tried to play off the severity of her leaving by telling them that once she had the house all fixed up, they could make the trek out for a big family vacation. Their sadness almost made her reconsider…almost. She considered his question. “Hell, I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The house has history, more importantly, history that isn’t mine. All I know is that I have to get out of Nashville. I can’t stay in that house anymore. Everywhere I turn a memory of Olivia plays out in front of me.”

“You could have stayed with us for a while.” Brett and Lauren had offered to put her up after she sold the house she and Victoria had shared, allowing her time to look for a new one. Instead, while on an impromptu vacation in Savannah, she’d found an older home in need of some TLC and put an offer on it. Then she came home and dropped the bomb on all of them. That was two months ago. Today, she’d signed her life away. She hoped she would be saying goodbye to the part of her life that still left fresh cuts on her heart anytime she saw a little girl that reminded her of Olivia. “I know, but it’s not just the house. It’s the city. I look at every little girl that walks by hoping that she is Olivia. I can’t do that anymore. I need to move on. I think…no, I hope this move will help. Besides, I’m…I’ve been thinking of making my own album.”

The shock on Brett’s face was priceless and to his credit it only took him seconds to recover. “Ren, that’s great! We wondered if you would ever write again.” Soren had been a song writer in Nashville prior to the breakup, with quite a few of her songs making it to the top ten for artists like Martina McBride, The Dixie Chicks and numerous others, including eight number one’s on the Billboard Hot 100, but hadn’t picked up a guitar or written down a lyric for more than two years.

Soren smiled. “Except this time, it’s for me. This will be my therapy. My last nod to the past and then, hopefully, I will be able to move on.”

“So, do Jordan and I get the first pressing?” Brett teased. “I can see it now – Soren Lockhart’s first CD goes platinum and she wins Country Music’s New Artist of the Year.”

Soren laughed, swept along in Brett’s fantasy. He’d always been the clown of the group, the one that left them all laughing and, most importantly, had been her strength during this ordeal. “Whoa, slow down tiger. I haven’t even started writing yet. It could suck. Besides, I’m kind of leaning away from country.” She watched his face, searching for his reaction to that.

When nothing more than warm encouragement registered in his eyes, she continued. “I always saw myself as more the singer-songwriter type. Lots of great acoustic guitar and painful lyrics. The atmosphere of the house lends itself to dark and foreboding.”

“Ren, I don’t care what you write, sing, produce, whatever, I am just happy to see you back at it. I’m sure anything you do will be amazing, dark lyrics and all.”

Soren beamed at the compliment. “Thanks, Brett. You know you are the first person I’ve told. I haven’t even said anything to Jordan yet.” Jordan was the biggest country fan on earth and her music staple consisted of anything from Emmylou Harris to Carrie Underwood so the change in Soren’s music would come as somewhat of a surprise.

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine, and if she isn’t, Ali can make everything all better.” Brett smiled when he talked about his sister Jordan and her partner, Ali. The younger of the two by only seven minutes, as she liked to remind him, Jordan had been the wild one of the group and didn’t settle down until she met Ali Carothers five years before. Now, she had a life partner, a house in Brentwood, and child number one on the way. “One kiss from her and Jordan will forget everything else around her.”

Soren shrugged. “You’re right. And if she isn’t fine, then oh well.” She winked slyly. “I mean this is all about me, right?”

“Absolutely. I mean why else would you traipse across the country to a house in the middle of nowhere and leave us all behind?” He smiled to let her know he was teasing. “So, are you really okay? This just seems so sudden. I just want to make sure you are doing the right thing.”

Soren smiled ruefully. “Who knows? If I’m wrong, you guys can throw all the I told you so’s in my face when I get back.”

Brett feigned innocence. “What are you talking about? We would never do that.”

Soren rolled her eyes. “Right, and I’m straight.”

“At least come to dinner tonight so we can tie you up and stuff you in the closet so you can’t leave.”

“Oh God no, whatever you do, I don’t want to go back in the closet.”

Brett groaned loudly, very used to Soren’s lesbian jokes. “Just come by, okay? Lauren would shoot me if I didn’t invite you, and I refuse to get the wife mad at me.”

“Far be it from me to be responsible for you being in the dog house…again. Lord knows, you do that enough on your own.” As a lawyer, Brett’s long hours and late nights away from home didn’t always sit well with his wife, Lauren. For the most part, she was pretty patient, but on the days when their three kids wore her out, it was common knowledge that Brett paid for it if he didn’t make it home on time. “Besides, if I come running home after realizing what a crazy idea this was, I can’t have you taking up the guest room.”